Dear friends of the Russia & America Good Will Association (www.raga.org) and antiwar colleagues! 

Urgent matters first:

1. My friend and RAGA associate James George Jatras sent the following appeal:  

Dear Friends:
The petition below was posted on the White House website today. It is self-explanatory.  Please go to the link to sign. Distribute widely via email and social media.  Thanks, Jim

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/president-donald-trump-should-hold-early-summit-russian-president-vladimir-putin

I signed it myself and posted it on RAGA facebook. I suggest you do likewise.2. CONGRATS to Ed and Tatiana Lozansky, RAGA's old-time peace-loving friends !

Read about them Celebrating 1982: A Pivotal Year
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/may/21/celebrating-1982-pivotal-year/
or here https://www.facebook.com/RAGAforPeace/

3. Ed Lozansky's persistent efforts to promote US-Russia friendship do not go without resistance. Smear campaign against Ed Lozansky continues unabated. This time Ksenia Kirillova, a Russian journalist living in the USA, suggests that it was Lozansky who had formulated the Kremlin's strategy of undermining American democracy. One would think that Radio Svoboda's (Freedom!) task should not be contrary to any peace-promoting efforts. The link is in Russian, but I am sure much of the same stuff Kirillova says one can find in any US paper. https://www.svoboda.org/a/29229380.html

4. RAGA also joins in supporting 2018 PEACE PRIZE NOMINEES
<<We are pleased to announce that our Founding Members have nominated seven outstanding Americans to be considered for the Foundation's 2018 Peace Prize. They are Daniel Ellsberg, Nancy Mancias, Colman McCarthy, David Swanson, Sharon Tennison, Sally-Alice Thompson, and S. Brian Willson.>> https://mailchi.mp/uspeacememorial/2018-peace-prize-nominees?e=1b14d9bd2d

About half of the nominees have been quoted either in RAGA Antidotes or in my own writings. All deserve recognition!

5. When I was a student at the University of Moscow, around 1957, there appeared a very mellow, romantic, and totally unpolitical song, Moscow Nights,which soon became very popular in the USSR and world-wide. Since the song is about relaxing Summer time, I hope you'd enjoy it right now, performed by Dmitry Hvorostovsky, a world-renown opera singer who recently passed away, and Anna Netrebko, likewise a famed opera singer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8D_UepJMizs) Moscow Nights - Dmitri Hvorostovsky and Anna Netrebko | Russian Songs with English Subtitles:

As to Jerusalem becoming an undivided capital of Israel, you may want to read my 2012 article "The World for Israel, or Jews for the World?" It was about a forum in Washington dedicated to the legacy of Rabbi Elmer Berger, one of the early American anti-Zionists. By W. George Krasnow, it published January 09, 2012 on the Antiwar site

http://original.antiwar.com/krasnow/2012/01/08/the-world-for-israel/ 

There I wrote in 2011: "Zionist claims on Jerusalem as an exclusive capital of Israel have inflamed anti-Israeli and anti-American passions in all Muslim countries. It has helped the fanatical jihadists win the hearts and minds of millions of Muslims who came to mistrust their moderate and secular politicians for their failure to defend Muslim rights to Jerusalem, or Al-Quds, as sacred to their cultural tradition". 

I suggested it then and say it now that Jerusalem literally belongs to all humankind as the birthplace of the world's three major religions. It should be put under the jurisdiction of the United Nations, administered as a cultural treasure of the world, a place where Jews, Christians, and Muslims could live in peace, harmony, and brotherhood and thus inspire the rest of mankind to religious, racial, ethnic and cultural co-existence and co-operation.

​This article is also available in Russian "Израиль играет судьбой мира, иудаизма и еврейства. Памяти раввина Элмера Бергера". Автор: Владислав Краснов
http://perevodika.ru/articles/20787.html?sphrase_id=3249777&ELEMENT_ID=20787%3Fsphrase_id%3D3249777&PAGEN_7=2


Ambassador Chas W. Freeman, Jr. (USFS, Ret.) Senior Fellow, Watson Institute for International & Public Affairs, Brown University, made very sensible speech "U.S. Policy and the Geopolitical Dynamics of the Middle East"
http://www.raga.org/news/us-policy-and-the-geopolitical-dynamics-of-the-middle-east-chas-freeman


I immediately translated it into Russian for the benefit of Russian policy makers: "Политика США и геополитическая динамика Ближнего Востока. Наши прошлые ошибки и видение будущего" - Автор: Charles W. Freeman, Jr. Переводчик: Владислав Краснов (W. GeorgeKrasnow)
http://www.raga.org/novosti/-charles-w-freeman-jr


Another favorite American journalist of mine is Allan C. Brownfeld who in early l980s served as a member of President Ronald Reagan's transition team and made policy recommendations. I have admired his writing since the Old Cold War. Like myself, Allan has been a contributor to The Fitzgerald Griffin Foundation site (http://www.fgfbooks.com/AllanBrownfeld/aBrownfeld-bio.html).

In fact, I have translated a number of his articles for the benefit of Russian readers, most recently the one on the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration.http://perevodika.ru/articles/1196711.html

Brownfeld also runs the ISSUES magazine of the American Council for Judaism. (http://www.acjna.org/acjna/articles_author.aspx). He just emailed to me his latest article that has not yet been posted.ISRAEL AT 70:  A GROWING DILEMMA FOR AMERICAN JEWS .  BY  ALLAN C. BROWNFELD.
Below are its most striking passages:

<<As Israel celebrated its 70th anniversary in April, and American Jews wished it well, the fact is that it has become a divisive force in the community, repeatedly proclaiming itself a "Jewish state, while its 50-year occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem and its blockade and isolation of millions of Palestinians in Gaza, shows it acting in a way that violates Jewish moral and ethical values.>> 

<<It is ironic that Jews, who have suffered oppression in many places at many times, would find themselves in the position of denying Palestinians basic political and human rights. Many in Israel are conscious of the dilemma they face.  Bradley Burston, writing in Haaretz (April 4, 2018). declared, "In the case of Zionism, can the victims of anti-Semitism come to acknowledge their---our---own bigotry, our own ingrained prejudices, our own sense of superiority and entitlement, our own history of injustice to the minorities in their midst?"

Israel at 70, Burston points out, is seeing the dramatic growth of racism and intolerance:  "This is a country which...demeans and dismisses and conflates Palestinian lives...In Israel at 70, Zionism means a government of the racist, by the racist, for the racist".>>

Brownfeld's attitude toward Israel is similar to those of Gideon Levy, Norman Finkelstein, Israel Shamir, Ambassador Freeman or Rabbi Alissa Wise.

Jon Utley is the publisher of "The American Conservative" magazine. He has been RAGA ally and my antiwar friend since last Millennium. I am proud to have helped him find the grave of his father, a Russian Jew, summarily executed as a "Trotskyite" (he was not!) in Stalin's purges.

"Clever Lies to Promote War"
by Jon Basil Utley, May 11, 2018
<<...Most recently we had cable news inundating us with stories of a new poison gas attack in Syria. The American Conservative has published a detailed analysis by former arms inspector Scott Ritter questioning the evidence, or lack of it, that the Assad regime initiated the attack.>>
http://fgfbooks.com/Utley/2018/Utley180503.html

The FGF is a basically Catholic site devoted to the preservation of Western values, and I am proud to be one of its authors. Scott Ritter is also my friend since about 2004 when he exposed the hoax about Saddam Hussein's WMD and I wrote about him in RAGA newsletters.

A few words of wisdom written in 2016 by Michael Brenner, Emeritus Professor, the University of Pittsburgh; a Senior Fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations, SAIS-Johns Hopkins (Washington, D.C.), about the decline of intellectual standards of US political elite who have surrendered to fantasies in their view of the world:

<<"We can expect that whoever winds up in senior policy positions in a Trump administration ... will be encouraged by the tradition of self-delusion that has become a feature of American thinking about its place in the world. Think of the Middle East where just about everything that we have been doing since 2001 has been guided by a fantastic view of the region – from Iraq, to Syria, to Yemen, to Afghanistan and Pakistan, to the Gulf, to Turkey, to Palestine and Israel. This tendency to divorce ourselves from reality so as to perpetuate myths of American omnipotence and superiority is also witnessed at the operational level". >> 

Now disturbing News from ZeroHedge Janitor

Published on May 9, 2018
Ret. CIA Analyst Ray McGovern Brutalized By Police At Haspel Confirmation

Ray has also been my friend and RAGA associate since I posted a story on the Veterans Today site in 2011 when security guards used illegal man-handling techniques on Ray when he peacefully protested against Hillary Clinton's war-like speech.

Now let "The Washington Post" get out of its usual russophobic mode and say something sensible.

"How did the end of the Cold War become today’s dangerous tensions with Russia?"

By Archie Brown May 4, 2018  

Archie Brown is emeritus professor of politics at the University of Oxford and author, most recently, of “The Rise and Fall of Communism” and of “The Myth of the Strong Leader: Political Leadership in the Modern Age.”

<<...For Michael McFaul, in his vigorously argued political memoir, “From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia,” there is a “new ideological struggle . . . between Russia and the West, not between communism and capitalism but between democracy and autocracy.” As a generalization, that is unconvincing...it is hard to agree that the contemporary ideological struggle with Russia is one between democracy and autocracy. Russia has become substantially more authoritarian in the post-Soviet era than it was in the last years of the Soviet Union, but it retains far more freedom and elements of pluralism than were to be found in the pre-perestroika U.S.S.R.>>

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/how-did-the-end-of-the-cold-war-become-todays-dangerous-tensions-with-russia/2 

Newsweek attacks Ed Lozansky (and deserves the badge of honor from me)

Lozansky, a former nuclear physicist who emigrated from the Soviet Union in 1976, is known in Russia policy circles as a mysterious, conservative figure. With analysts warning of a new Cold War, and as the Department of Justice and Congress investigate Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election, Lozansky’s efforts to promote Russia in Washington have drawn scrutiny from analysts and even allegations that he is spreading propaganda for the Kremlin.

http://www.newsweek.com/russia-house-washington-dc-edward-lozansky-forum-899928 

Sharon Tennison, another RAGA ally, reports that
“Bottom-Up Diplomacy” is Working!!!April 20, 2018
https://ccisf.org/bottom-up-diplomacy-is-working/

BBC News. Published on Apr 16, 2018
​
Here is Lord West, former First Sea Lord, speaking to the BBC this morning, his thoughts on why he thinks the chemical weapons attack on Douma was a false flag.

"Jimmy Carter Just Issued A Chilling Warning To Trump About Syria"
by Tyler Durden/Fri, 04/13/2018 - 10:44

Former President Jimmy Carter urges President Donald Trump to refrain from launching an illegal military attack on Syria, warning of the serious dangers - including nuclear conflagration - that could result.

"I pray that he would keep our country at peace and not exaggerate or exacerbate the challenges that come up with North Korea, in Russia, or in Syria," Carter told The Associated Press about Trump's recent threats.

"I hope he realizes very profoundly as I did, and as other presidents have done," Carter continued, "that any nuclear exchange could involve catastrophe for all human beings."
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-04-13/jimmy-carter-just-issued-chilling-warning-trump-about-syria

Even  Paul Craig Roberts is alarmed
"America Has No Unifying Moral Culture - It Will Lose a War with Russia", he wrote on Apr 5, 2018
"A country without a unifying moral culture is no longer a country. Yet, what pretends to be a country, the US, is being led into war against Russia, a real country. There is no chance whatsoever of the US prevailing in the oncoming war."
https://russia-insider.com/en/america-has-no-unifying-moral-culture-it-will-lose-war-russia/ri22982?ct=t(Russia_Insider_Daily_Headlines11_21_2014)&mc_cid=d89a40f5e8&mc_eid=73f16282b9

"A recent poll of Americans showed that “74% think America is a dictatorship; only 21% think it’s not.” Perhaps Americans are more realistic about the government than about the ‘news’ media."
http://theduran.com/russias-v-americas-records-on-democracy-and-on-whistleblowers-safety/

Which calls us back to Shamir's article: 
"Since that fateful May 9th day (when Netanyahu was just about the only foreign leader to stand next to Putin during the Red Square parade), Russian media has been treating Israel very cautiously", --observes Shamir. "Even the Gaza massacre didn’t bring many condemnations in the Russian media, though the Russian Foreign Office condemned this brutal act. The official state agency RIA reported that Israeli soldiers shot at “especially aggressive individuals”. The second (largest) state news agency TASS minimized its reporting about the massacre". 
   
  Concludes Shamir with a powerful crescendo: "In short, the Jews overcame their problems by mid-May 2018, and emerged as a leading polity on the planet Earth, in perfect rapport with both superpowers and in control over mind of billions. The massacre of Gaza furnished the proof they can kill with impunity."

Notice "control over minds of billions". It refers to the same phenomenon that Russia-Insider's Charles Bausman described in his article "It's time we drop the Jew Taboo" (http://www.raga.org/news/drop-the-jew-taboo). If we take into account that the number of people who read Russian has greatly diminished since the Old Cold War and is certainly many times smaller than those who use English, US MEGA Media has a field day to manipulate not just US government, but also the public opinion in the world. ​

Prof. Vladislav Krasnov ​

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​All statements in this report are an opinion of the author. Act at your own risk. Russia & America Goodwill Association (RAGA) is not responsible for the content of the article. Any views or opinions presented in this report are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RAGA. Any liability in respect to this communication remain with the author.

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